The way we apply this precious commodity shapes our entire experience of life. Squander it, and life quickly becomes empty and meaningless. Invest it, and life can blossom beautifully.
This week studied the investment of time into four categories of productive and creative endeavors.
For better or for worse, humans are not robots. There are limits to our productivity.
But neither are we hopeless heaps of hormones acting exclusively on emotional whim. We can learn to deploy our minds to purpose and make consistent progress in an inspiring direction.
The key to unleashing the power of this complicated emotional machine lies in a regular recharge.
Cruising speed
We’ve all been there… A brief and desperate excursion beyond our breaking point, followed by a spectacular crash.
In this scenario, the best case is a couple of ultra unhealthy days of binge-watching and binge-eating. Worse cases involve trips to the hospital or psychiatrist.
Aside from being deeply unpleasant and unhealthy, such episodes are actually counter-productive. We’d have been able to get a whole lot more done staying safely within our limits.
Each one of us needs to find their own perfect productive pace: fast enough to be stimulating, but not so fast that we start falling apart.
Sleep
This is the most natural form of recharge our bodies demand every day. It should be fully embraced by anyone who wants a long and interesting life.
I’m currently about half way through Matthew Walker’s eye-opening book on the science of sleep.
The main (scientifically backed) message is that sleep is just as important to our general health and happiness as healthy eating, regular exercise and low stress.
Thus, if you’re thinking of sleeping less to increase productivity… Don’t.
These charges can be anything reasonably healthy that relaxes the mind or stimulates it in a completely different way.
Here are some of my favorites:
Playing piano or guitar
Enjoying a session in my massage chair
A Headspace meditation
Taking a walk around the lake close to my flat
Healthy and delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner
A free fruit break at the office
An interesting random conversation
A ski or rollerblade trip
Reading a silly comic book for Norwegian practice
I’ve found that I can continue indefinitely on one-hour sessions with such 10-30 minute recharge sessions in-between. In RescueTime, it looks something like this:
Dark blue: Online productive time like MS Office, simulation software and blogs. Light blue: Offline productive time like meetings, exercise, music and reading. Grey: Neutral time like eating and socializing. Red: Distracting time like YouTube and Facebook.
Got rhythm?
Such machine-like consistency tends to make people uncomfortable.
Come on! We’re supposed to be unproductive in the evenings and weekends (even if it sometimes gets quite unhealthy and brings us surprisingly little joy).
Yes, the world expects you to slog it out for five days and recuperate for two. But that doesn’t mean this is the best rhythm for achieving inspirational levels of productivity.
In the end, it boils down to this:
The mind and body need regular recharge and replenishment.
Recharging activities don’t need to be passive or self-destructive.
Your ideal recharge rhythm may well differ from the societal norm.
I really recommend experimenting with this and finding your perfect rhythm. Personally, I wish I’d found mine many years ago…
This week, we’ll talk about our most precious resource: time.
Excellent time management is essential for getting the best out of life without burning out or losing motivation.
We’ll break it down into four chunks: planning, execution, communication, and recharging. Today’s post starts us off with planning.
Prioritize planning
Humans are great at just winging it. Our short-term instincts are well suited to dealing with random problems as they pop up. Indeed, such problems can extract heroic levels of effort from us.
But in today’s world, working smart is substantially more important than working hard.
Those who do not invest the planning time needed for smart work run the risk of getting little or nothing out of their efforts. And that’s no fun whatsoever.
In my experience, dedicating 10-20% of your productive time to planning is the sweet spot.
In other words, for a standard 40 hour workweek, 4-8 hours should be spent deciding what to do instead of actually doing stuff. It sounds like a lot, but this investment will pay for itself many times over.
Schedule planning time
The three key planning events discussed last week should be regulars in any productive schedule:
Monthly plan. An hour or two at the end of each month.
Life plan. Whenever you receive some divine inspiration regarding your purpose.
Planning complex tasks
The scheduled planning sessions mentioned above are vital, but they actually take up quite little time – maybe 1-2 hours per week.
Most planning time will actually happen before starting a new and reasonably complex task.
Any task that requires a bit of brainpower and needs more than a day to complete can benefit from planning. The greater the complexity and time commitment, the greater the value of planning.
Here are a few general guidelines:
Always plan on (digital) paper. If a smart idea pops into your head while you’re away from your PC, note it down on your phone checklist and transfer it to paper later.
Be lazy and do proper research in the planning phase (it will save you a lot of work). Learn from the experience of others and make sure you have access to the best tools.
Have a written record for any team planning. (Well organized) email works nicely for this, but you can also have a shared planning space in various cloud-based solutions.
A great investment
Planning is an awesome investment. You don’t make any progress while planning, but it will greatly accelerate your progress and enhance you work satisfaction in the execution phase.
